RE: EMIL NEMES :Slovak Tsimbele and fidl?

[Gifford, Paul <pgifford...>]

Actually most of the Gypsy musicians who came to the U.S. between
the late 1880s and 1914 came from around Presov, now in Slovakia,
but then in the county of Saros, Hungary.  They spoke Romany as
their native language, but also Slovak and Hungarian.  They
settled mainly in Braddock, PA, Cleveland, and Youngstown, OH,
at first, but later went to Detroit, New York, and Chicago.

Emil Nemes is an unfamiliar name to me, but since the recording
is Slovak-oriented, maybe he was ethnically Slovak.  In the
1920s, recordings by Gypsy orchestras appeared on both Hungarian
and Slovak series, the names changed to fit the language.  Of
the particular people I mentioned above, the main primas was
John Brenkacs of Cleveland and Detroit, born in Zemplin, Slovakia.
The name is Brenkac on Slovak issues and Brenkacs on Hungarian.
As they were Romany speakers living in ethnically mixed areas
in the old Kingdom of Hungary (in some areas mainly Slovak),
they could fit whatever ethnic bill they wanted to.

There were Jewish Hungarian Gypsy musicians, too.  And some
of these Gypsies played Russian music at Catskill resorts.

Instrumentation usually has a leader (primas) who plays violin,
possibly a "tenor" violin, playing parallel harmony, viola,
held sideways and playing chords; cimbalom (or cimbal in Slovak)
playing broken chords and countermelodies; and bass.  A larger
group could have a cello, playing countermelodies or parallel
harmony and clarinet, alternating melody and countermeloy.

They play a few Romanian tunes (maybe "Doina Oltului"), but the
usual medley is a hallgato (slow song), slow and fast csardas.

Paul Gifford

elliott_simon (at) dca(dot)net wrote:

>Hi...hope all are well...I just came back from Pittsburgh, PA and 
>spent several days cleaning out my in-law's condo. They are Slovak
and 
>have a huge record/tape collection of Slovak music. Most of it is 
>Polka but one record that I found delightful and very different is 
>Emil Nemes, Slovak Gypsy Melodies (APON  S-2434), the record is 
>intriguing as it features Emil Nemes and his gypsy orchestra...the 
>tunes are lovely folk melodies with some hot gypsy violin...to my
ears 
>some start out with a doina and move to a czardas...the 
>instrumentation as far as I can tell consists of violin, tsimble and 
>bass (bass balalaika?)....the liner notes are not all that
informative 
>but say that Emil resides at 1571 Second Avenue, NYC and plays at his

>own night club the famous "Gypsy Caravan" ...Any of the tsimbele 
>aficionados on the list know who the player is?....or anything else 
>about the LP?...a brief web search found a few hits but at  hungarian

sites ..thnks and best to all...Elliott

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+